In accordance with certain embodiments, the present invention relates to the field of connectors that attach to multi-toothed profiles on subsea wellheads and, more particularly, to connector profiles that better distribute stress among the teeth to strengthen the connection.
Connectors are employed to attach certain types of equipment to wellhead housings. One common example provides attaching blowout preventer equipment to a subsea wellhead. Bodies that house a blowout preventer are connected to a wellhead. Early designs of such a connection involved a generally C-shaped clamp that was forced to move radially to capture a pair of spaced flanges on the wellhead and the body of the blowout preventer. One example of this single contact surface for this type of collet connector is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,096,999. Another form of engagement uses a series of contact surfaces performing a similar connecting function as single surface, but the loading is now distributed on the multiple surfaces available. A common example of this connection kind is the Vetco H4 wellhead. Connector designs in the past may have varied in actuation techniques or size and shape of locking dogs, but one thing they all had in common was that the tooth profile was designed to match the wellhead profile for the size and spacing of engaging teeth. Some examples of such closely matched connector profiles to the wellhead profiles can be seen in DX series connectors offered by Drill Quip, H-4 connectors from ABB Vetco Gray and similar products from Cameron. These products featured a group of radially moving dogs where the tooth profile on the dog matches the wellhead tooth profile, and an angled ring drove the profiles together to connect a body to the wellhead.
This practice has gone on for years without recognition of a limitation of such minor image tooth profile designs in wellhead connector art. The problem not heretofore realized and addressed by the present invention is that using a minor image tooth profile on the locking dog results in an unequal distribution of stress and contact forces on the loading surfaces, with the loading surface closest to the connector body on the locking collet and wellhead bearing a disproportionately large percentage of the stress and contact force among the loading surfaces. This occurs because from a common reference line on the locking collet the loading surface closest to the reference line experienced the lowest percentage elongation and thus carried more of the stress than loading surfaces progressively further from a common and stationary reference line. The elongation of the dog and compression of the wellhead makes the loads progressively lower for each tooth profile further from a common reference line.
The present invention, exemplary embodiments of which are discussed below, provides various benefits and abates various concerns, such as the concerns addressed above.